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  <title>Chapter 29</title>
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            <h1 class="title">Chapter 29</h1>
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          <h2 class="subtitle">Iszak</h2>
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      <p class="first first-in-chapter first-full-width"><span class="first-letter first-letter-s">S</span>earing pain burned behind Iszak’s eyes. He stumbled and shook his head, trying to regain his bearings. Beside him, Lukas muttered, “What the fuck did we just see?”</p>
      <p class="subsq">Even though his field of vision was blank now, there was still an afterimage of the scene they’d walked in on. Belah’s beauty had hit him as strongly as it had the first night he’d seen her, and the overwhelming warmth of his love for her flooded through him. However, in the afterimage, the figure that knelt before her was not the enemy he’d hated his entire life, but an extension of the woman he knew was his one true mate.</p>
      <p class="subsq">No, it had to be some trick of the spell Nikhil had thrown at them. They’d moved too slowly. When they came in, he thought for a moment that Belah had things under control, but everything went to shit within a few seconds, and Iszak cursed himself for not reacting quicker. He shook the feeling off, focusing instead on trying to shed the magic that had his feet pinned to the floor.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Beside him, Lukas’s hand found his, and his brother’s whisper was loud in his ear. “I don’t care what magic made me just see what I saw. He’s still the enemy, and we can’t stop him alone. Breathe. We’re doing this together.”</p>
      <p class="subsq">Taking a deep breath, Iszak shook off the sense that he’d just laid eyes on an old lover. He forced himself to fill his lungs and blew, willing the Wind to fill the room and tell him where their enemy was. The Wind whispered and nudged at first, pushing them bodily in one direction and overcoming the magic that kept them in place. The resulting whirlwind that surrounded them ripped across his skin and through his hair.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Soon the blindness abated and he could at least see shapes again, though they were blurry. His… <i>lover … </i>Iszak shook his head violently. No, his <i>enemy</i> held Belah’s body over the silver basin in the floor, blood streaming from the wound in her chest. She was still conscious, her bloody hand gripping at the back of Nikhil’s neck and pulling him down in what looked like a kiss.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Still halfway immobilized, Iszak was forced to watch. His lungs worked, but the wind could do no more to the surroundings than it could to a mountain. All the objects that could be moved had been blown into the corners and remained there in fragmented piles. Nikhil himself seemed immune to the wind now, as was Belah in his arms.</p>
      <p class="subsq">The Wind moved him incrementally closer, and he realized that was not a kiss Belah gave Nikhil, but a whispered message, though he could not make out the words.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Whatever Belah said, they were powerful words. Shock and disbelief flashed across Nikhil’s face, paralyzing him for a second, but it was enough for Iszak and Lukas to spring free of his magic.</p>
      <p class="subsq">“Hold him with all you’ve got!” Iszak yelled.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Lukas already had his lips pursed and wind howled from his lungs, pushing Nikhil away from Belah and throwing him against the wall behind the growing pool of blood. Iszak lunged for the pile of ropes beside the wooden cross, grabbed them, and ran to his immobilized enemy. He recognized them as the same ropes he’d used to tie Belah earlier. They would easily hold Nikhil—or so he hoped.</p>
      <p class="subsq">When he approached, Nikhil struggled against Lukas’s wind and let out a cry of protest. Iszak’s stomach did a flip at the first contact of his hand against Nikhil’s neck when he closed his palm around it and squeezed.</p>
      <p class="subsq">“You’ll never lay a finger on her again, you bastard,” he growled, then released Nikhil and quickly tied a noose that he looped around the man’s neck. The entire time, he couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that what he was doing was all wrong. That this was violence against his <i>One</i> somehow, even though a quick glance over his shoulder assured him Belah was still breathing and being tended to by his brother.</p>
      <p class="subsq">It had to be a trick of the enemy’s magic—some kind of self-preservation. He forced himself to tighten the noose around Nikhil’s neck and work on binding him completely. The knots he tied were quick and haphazard, and the tightest he could make them.</p>
      <p class="subsq">When he had Nikhil secured, Lukas’s immobilizing wind abated and the room finally grew quiet. Iszak shoved Nikhil to the ground and grabbed the tail of rope around his neck and pulled, dragging the man over to the bloody cross.</p>
      <p class="subsq">After binding him securely, he joined his brother on the floor beside their bleeding mate.</p>
      <p class="subsq">“Stay with us, Belah,” Lukas said. “We’ve got you. He can’t hurt you now.”</p>
      <p class="subsq">“I couldn’t …” Belah’s breath caught and her eyes fluttered closed in pain. “… couldn’t see what it was … that had him. Something in his mind …” A bloody cough spluttered up from her chest.</p>
      <p class="subsq">“Don’t speak,” Iszak said. “He’s bound with the ropes we tied you with. They seem to be holding him.” He glanced over his shoulder at the man on the cross.</p>
      <p class="subsq">“Won’t … hold him long …” she said. “Don’t let … him go.”</p>
      <p class="subsq">“No. He deserves to die, after everything he’s done.”</p>
      <p class="subsq">“Can’t kill him … only my fire can. What would Asha say?”</p>
      <p class="subsq">“Brother,” Lukas urged from his side. “Her lung is pierced. The bleeding’s stopped, but she’s losing breath. Belah, how long will it take you to heal from this?”</p>
      <p class="subsq">“Need my blood back, first. The blade is tempered with my fire. If I could breathe …” She coughed again, and for a second, her heartbeat fully stopped before restarting.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Iszak nearly panicked before remembering the one part of their mating they hadn’t completed. “We must breathe for her, brother. If we complete the ritual now, the Winds will help heal her.”</p>
      <p class="subsq">“Belah, it’s time to finish our mating ritual,” Iszak whispered in her ear. “The part we would have done, if we hadn’t been interrupted.”</p>
      <p class="subsq">She nodded weakly, turning sparkling blue eyes to gaze up at him.</p>
      <p class="subsq">“I’m ready,” she said with the last breath in her lungs.</p>
      <p class="subsq"><i>“Boreas breathes for us, we breathe for each other,”</i> Iszak said, then inhaled and pressed his mouth to hers. The full magic of the North Wind streamed from his lips into her body. His mouth remained locked onto hers, but around them gravity seemed to forget they had weight. The song in his lungs filled hers with his breath. Around him drifted the notes of Lukas humming their mating call.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Iszak’s breath eventually reached its limit, and it was Lukas’s turn.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Without releasing hold of her body, he leaned back and let his brother take over.</p>
      <p class="subsq"><i>“Zephyrus breathes for us, we breathe for each other,” </i>Lukas said, calling the West Wind before pressing his lips to hers and exhaling, long and slow.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Inside his mind, Belah’s voice resonated, repeating each mantra as her part of the vows.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Lukas released her mouth and Iszak took over again, repeating the mantra with the South Wind and filling Belah’s lungs again. Then Lukas called the East Wind.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Before Iszak could bend to start the process again, she exhaled a long, raspy breath and blue smoke erupted in a cloud, a tiny bit of it leaking from the still open wound in her chest. She clenched her eyes shut, and Iszak watched as the smoke grew dense and bright and swirled around the surface of the basin of blood.</p>
      <p class="subsq">A thin trail of blue smoke extended back to Belah’s wound. As they watched, the blood gradually funneled its way back to her body.</p>
      <p class="subsq">After a moment, her body warmed and her breathing became more even.</p>
      <p class="subsq">“My turn,” she said, and reached up to grab Iszak by the back of the neck. The words of the mantra slipped from her lips a second before they found his and her breath flooded his lungs. Their power mingled inside him and he reciprocated, sending the breath back.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Lukas was ready when she turned to him, and opened his mouth to take hers eagerly.</p>
      <p class="subsq">The wound in her chest closed, and the other bloody marks on her body slowly disappeared. She slid off Lukas’s lap and stood unsteadily. Iszak and his brother were both up in a heartbeat to hold her. She gratefully accepted their arms around her waist and pressed one hand to her belly.</p>
      <p class="subsq">“I fear I’ve lost my son and daughter, but I have this little one to think of now. Can we go home, please?”</p>
      <p class="subsq">“Nanyo was right, as usual,” Lukas said with a chuckle. “But what do we do about him?”</p>
      <p class="subsq">The brothers turned to their captive, and both let out loud curses when they found nothing but an empty cross.</p>
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